


The Lioness and Her Cub

by bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies



Series: That Ultra-Kind of Love You Never Walk Away From [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Implied Keith/BoM, Implied everyone/everyone tbh..., Mild Injury, Platonic Cuddling, Protective Mama Krolia, Protectiveness, Referenced past Antok/Keith, like very very mild she kinda over-reacted lmao, she protecc... but she also attacc...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 23:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14366505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies/pseuds/bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies
Summary: "Antok!"  A voice shouted, making the two of them turn around.  The automatic door opened with a hiss, and a tall, intimidating-looking  Galra woman stalked in, Blade mask dissolving.  "I just had to haul Keith to the quiznaking infirmary and treat a huge, unhealed bite on his shoulder.  Any idea how it got there?"  She planted her feet in front of him, hands on her hips as she glared up at the much-taller half-Galra."I haven't the faintest."  Antok said."Keith is hurt?"  Shiro asked, concerned.   His eyes widened.  "Wait, you're Krolia?  Keith's mom?"  Of course, that was why she looked vaguely familiar!  He could definitely see it in the shape of the eyes and the line of her jaw, as well as the cold fire in her glare."Yes."  She looked him up and down critically.  Her nostrils flared and she pointed a clawed finger at him.  "I'll get to you in a moment.""Is Keith okay?"  Shiro asked.  Krolia didn't even spare him a glance as she held up a finger to silence him, and something about her aura was so commanding that Shiro wisely just shut his mouth.(Shiro meets Krolia and sees where Keith gets his fire from.  But like her son, she has a softer side, too)





	The Lioness and Her Cub

**Author's Note:**

> From [Currently_Obsessed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Currently_Obsessed/pseuds/Currently_Obsessed) and [CMS521's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMS521/pseuds/CMS521) comments on other works in the series
> 
> EDIT/UPDATE: This series is directly connected with my [Keith and the Blade of Marmora](https://archiveofourown.org/series/924888) series, in which Galra view sex as a bonding activity and Keith participates in that with the Blades, yet the only person he is in a serious, committed, romantic relationship with is Shiro. The aforementioned series is for Keith/various BoM members, whereas this series is for sheith and things that Shiro is also included in. :3 The Galra biology works the same in both series, hence being in the same collection.
> 
> This installment doesn't have a particular place it happens in relation to the above series. Just "at some point", the timing is unspecified. Enjoy!

"...We don't yet know what this new supply route is being used for, but we suspect it might be illegal transportation of unrefined quintessence."  Antok explained, pointing out a few places on the holo-map in front of him and Shiro.  

Shiro nodded thoughtfully.  "I'll let Allura know as soon as I get back to the castle tonight.  She might want to put someone on watch for the area, just in case—"

" _Antok_!"  A voice shouted, making the two of them turn around.  The automatic door opened with a hiss, and a tall, intimidating-looking (yet... oddly familiar-looking...) Galra woman stalked in, Blade mask dissolving.  "I just had to haul Keith to the quiznaking  _infirmary_ and treat a huge, unhealed  _bite_ on his shoulder.  Any idea how it got there?"  She planted her feet in front of him, hands on her hips as she glared up at the much-taller half-Galra.  

"I haven't the faintest."  Antok said.

"Keith is hurt?"  Shiro asked, concerned.  

"He's fine now, and granted it wasn't enough to interfere with our mission..." The woman admitted, then glared at Antok once more.  "I know for a fact you can heal whatever mating marks you inflict.  What, did you get lazy, or even senile in your old age?  If you're going to fuck my son, you should at least provide sufficient aftercare, you giant oaf."  

"I'm not much older than you, you know."  Antok huffed, his flicking tail betraying his distaste for the insults.  

Shiro's eyes widened.  "Wait,  _you're_ Krolia?  Keith's mom?"  Of course, that was why she looked vaguely familiar!  He could definitely see it in the shape of the eyes and the line of her jaw, as well as the cold fire in her glare.

"Yes."  She looked him up and down critically.  Her nostrils flared and she pointed a clawed finger at him.  "I'll get to you in a moment."  She turned back to Antok, bristling.  " _You_ might not have considered the consequences of your actions, but had that bite become infected, Keith could have gotten very sick!"

"But he didn't."  Antok growled, clearly not seeing the point.

"Is Keith okay?"  Shiro asked.  Krolia didn't even spare him a glance as she held up a finger to silence him, and something about her aura was so commanding that Shiro wisely just shut his mouth.  

"You're lucky I spotted it when I did."  Krolia snapped at Antok.  "What do you have to say for yourself, after you just ran off without properly taking care of him?"

"First of all, we  _both_ ran off before we were finished, the outpost suddenly came under attack."  Antok crossed his arms.  "Second, I saw him this morning before the two of you left for the Androdrayx system, and he seemed fine, so you are over-reacting—"  

"You  _bit_ my  _son_!"  Krolia cut him off.  

"I bite everyone!"  Antok threw his hands up.  

Faster than Shiro could process, Krolia whipped out her knife and had it pressed to Antok's neck, pinning the larger Galra against the wall.  "Then maybe I should just rip your teeth out..." She threatened, voice low.  Antok growled in return. 

"Mom!"  Keith's voice called from the doorway, and Shiro looked over to find him stalking into the room.  "What are you doing?  I told you it was fine!"  

"He doesn't need his teeth if he's going to bite everything that comes across his path without bothering with proper aftercare."  Krolia explained.  

"That Galra cruiser took us by surprise!  Otherwise he would have!"  Keith said.  "Besides, I already told you: it wasn't bleeding, it didn't even hurt that much, and it didn't cause me any shoulder problems later... I really don't even need the bandage you put on it!"  He pointed empathically to a large white bandage taped to his shoulder, the corner of which was poking out of the collar of his suit.    

A muscle near Krolia's eye twitched.  "Were you two having sex while you were still on duty?"  She asked, her voice deadly pointed.  

Keith paled and Antok's tail stopped mid-twitch, both of them freezing.  Shiro was pretty sure that, even as loose as Galra rules seemed to be about sex, they weren't supposed to indulge such activities while they were technically on-duty.   

Krolia's eyes narrowed dangerously and her mouth opened, but before she could get a word out, Kolivan poked his head around the doorway.  "Antok, Keith, I need you two for the Xurian'kol operation.  We leave in five doboshes, come on."  

"Right away, Leader," Antok slipped past Krolia and followed Kolivan out the door, Keith hurrying behind him with a "yes, sir!"  Shiro had never seen two people more enthusiastic about leaving for a mission right that second.

"This discussion is not over!"  Krolia called after them.  She growled as the door slid shut.  Shiro had half a moment to digest this conversation before Krolia rounded on him with a glare so fierce that it made him – a military-trained, battle-hardened warrior – jump slightly.  "And you..." She turned to him, crossing her arms.  "So you're the one Keith is in a relationship with.  Shiro, isn't it?"

"Yes, pleasure to meet you, ma'am," Shiro extended a hand.  She merely looked at it.  He flexed his fingers before curling them and dropping his arm awkwardly.  "Did Keith, uh, tell you about me—?"

"Your scents are all over each other." Krolia cut him off.  "And you've been mentioned, though he isn't one to chat at length, as I'm sure you know.  But there's no mistaking the look in his eyes he gets when Kolivan mentions the princess is sending you over for business."  She slid her knife back into the sheath on the back of her belt, and Shiro noticed that it was a different knife that the one Keith carried; she must have had another made, and allowed him to keep her old one.  She jerked her head towards the door.  "Come.  You and I need to talk."  

Shiro started to feel nerves twist in his stomach as he followed her, having to nearly jog to keep up with her long stride.  "What about, ma'am?"  

"Krolia."  She corrected, leading him down a corridor deep into the base.  "And we just need to talk.  I need to get to know you better."  She shot him a side-long look.  "See if I approve of you."  

Oh boy.  Shiro had  _very_ vivid memories of the time Kolivan had invited him by to 'talk' and 'see if he approved' of him.  It had ended quite well, but to be perfectly honest, Shiro wasn't sure how he felt about going through something similar with Keith's mother.  "You... um... uh..."

Krolia paused at a dormitory door and gave him a bemused look.  "Have you lost the ability to speak, Black Paladin?  You were respectably eloquent a few moments ago."  She paused, then seemed to realize something.  "Oh. Kolivan?  And I bet Antok, too."  At Shiro's nod, she rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand.  "No, no, nothing like that.  I learned some human social rules during my year on Earth; I won't subject you to that."  She unlocked the door and beckoned him inside.  

The inside of the small room was set up exactly like the one Keith inhabited on the base.  Blades tended to come and go often for their work, so not many had personal artifacts to decorate their living quarters with and they were usually very spartan.  She had a data-pad and communicator sitting on the small desk and a box in the corner next to the wardrobe full of pieces of Imperial armor from her undercover work.  What drew his attention, though, was next to the bed.  

There was an old, faded vintage postcard of the red Arizona desert taped to the wall just above the bedside table, and a small picture frame resting on the table and facing the bed.  The frame was simple and wooden, worn down at the edges from being handled.  Three faces were featured in the photo, but only one was looking properly at the camera; a man with dark hair, stubble, gray-blue eyes, and a scar cutting across one dark eyebrow.  He looked up at the camera with an almost sly curl to his lip that didn't mar any of the obvious love in his eyes.  From the angle and the little bit of his arm visible in the corner, he looked to be holding the camera above them on the bed.  Beside him lay Krolia, looking considerably younger, but Shiro couldn't tell if it was the age of the photo or because she was asleep, her expression soft and relaxed.  Tucked in between the two of them lay a little baby with flyaway tufts of black hair sticking up all over his head, one sleepy violet eye peeking open as his nose scrunched up, as if wondering why his dad was taking a picture when the rest of them were sleeping.  The warm rose-gold light bathing the scene indicated that it was either early in the morning or late in the evening.  

"I told him I didn't want any photos of us."  Krolia said quietly, picking up the photo frame to show it to Shiro.  "I knew there would be trouble for them, if word got out that they had contact with an extraterrestrial.  I didn't want him to be questioned, or Keith to be locked up in some lab.  But he insisted on giving me one photo when I left, something to remember them by.  He developed it himself and destroyed the film after, so I couldn't really complain."  She smiled, thumb stroking the photo for a moment.  Then her smile slipped and her expression fell.  "Leaving them – leaving  _Keith_  – was the hardest thing I've ever done.  But I would do it all over again to keep the Galra away from Earth and keep the two of them safe.  So I did what I had to do.  But it was always my greatest regret that I could not be there for him as he grew up."  She lifted her eyes to look at Shiro.  "I cannot thank you enough, for being there for him.  He is lucky to have you in his life."

"I'm just as lucky, to have him in mine."  Shiro replied.  "When we met, the two of us didn't have... a lot of ties to other people.  Family and the like.  Maybe that's why we gravitated towards each other, at the beginning."  

Krolia lifted an eyebrow, curious.  "And after that?"  

Shiro chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck.  "Well, eventually I realized I was in love with him.  Not right away, but... he was always the one person I felt comfortable being myself with, showing my weaknesses and fears to when everyone else only wanted to see certain parts of me.  But Keith has always seen everything, with me.  And I think – I hope – the feeling is mutual."  

Krolia hummed.  "I feel it is.  He acts differently, when he is around you compared to the other Blades and the other paladins.  Not in a good or bad way, just different.  More relaxed.  It seems more true to himself, I feel.  But then again, despite our relationship, I fear I know the least about him, nowadays."  She looked down.  "It's strange that I was the first person to ever know him, before he had even taken his first breath.  And yet I know less about him than you, who just happened to cross paths with him before becoming intertwined.  Time makes strangers of even the closest of bonds."  

Her words brought up memories he hadn't thought about in years; hands grasping his own small ones, a laugh like a summer thunderstorm, warm and dark eyes with smile lines carved into weathered skin...  

"Yeah," he said quietly.  "It does."  

Krolia looked at him for a few minutes, her gaze as sharp as her son's.  She set the photo frame on the bedside table again and took his hand, guiding him to sit down on the bed with her, their backs resting against the wall.  "Why don't you tell me about yourself?  Who's the Takashi Shirogane that Keith knows?"  She asked, drawing him close with an arm around his shoulders.  

Shiro smiled and relaxed into the hug, settling against her as he started to talk.

~~~~~~~

"You did  _what_?"  Keith stared at him over the bowl of food goo he was chowing down, post-mission.  

"Had a chat with your mom."  Shiro shrugged.  "And not like Kolivan and Antok.  Some mild cuddling, mostly talking."  

"What about?"  Keith asked, scooping up another spoonful of goo.

Shiro thought about it.  "You, mainly."  He smiled, feeling it was what Keith called his 'dopey love-struck grin'.

" _Me_?"  Keith wrinkled his nose, and Shiro nearly laughed as he recalled the resemblance to the baby in the photograph.  "What about me?"

"Top secret."  Shiro smirked.  "Had-to-be-there kinda moment, sorry."  

Keith frowned lightly, more mildly annoyed than truly upset.  The kitchen door opened behind him and Krolia came wandering in, nodding briefly to them before grabbing one of the food goo packages.  

"Mom, what did you and Shiro talk about while I was on my mission?"  Keith asked, turning around in his chair.

Krolia shrugged and retrieved a spoon from the drawer.  "About himself, and me.  There was a considerable amount of the conversation devoted to you."

"Why  _me_?"  Keith looked mollified.  

Shiro arched an eyebrow at him, giving him a bland look.  "Why do you think?"  

"Okay, but what specifically about me?"  Keith pressed.  

"Hm, I don't remember."  Krolia hummed, winking at Shiro.  "Suppose you would have had to have been there."  

Keith huffed and crossed his arms.  "I can't believe you have inside jokes with my  _mom_ about  _me_."  

Shiro chuckled and leaned over the counter to kiss the pout off his lips.  

**Author's Note:**

> (BONUS)  
> Krolia, patting Shiro's head: "I'm adopting this one. He's my son now too."  
> Keith: "Well _that_ makes things a little complicated..."
> 
> I don't want to speculate too much about Shiro's backstory because I'm just eagerly awaiting it's canon appearance like everyone else, but to me, he doesn't seem to have a lot of connection with his family back on Earth. I like Josh Keaton's speculation that Shiro seems like an "old soul" because he may have been raised by a grandparent, I think that makes sense for him.
> 
> As always I've got a [ tumblr](http://gold-leeaf.tumblr.com/) and a [NSFW tumblr](https://bouquetofwhoopsiedaisies.tumblr.com/) if you want to see me scream about Voltron, or shoot me a request/commish.


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